FARO was invaded the last weekend in July, but it was largely peaceful. The city plays host to Europe’s biggest biker-fest, aka International Algarve Bike Meet.

It’s estimated that about 25,000 bikers roar in from all around Europe to enjoy this annual get-together. This year’s was the 28th. That means a show of more leather-clad bodies than John Wayne ever drove along his Chisholm trail!

It kick-starts on the Friday evening, but bikes are roaring down the IC-1 and the A2 toll road either side of us from Thursday onwards.

It’s best to be motoring in the opposite direction, that is, north at the beginning and south on the Sunday as it packs up, otherwise it gets a bit hairy.

Do you remember the oft quoted phrase for looking out for approaching bikes –

‘Think Once, Think Twice, Think, help – how fast is this one shifting!

Besides the participants there’s a throng of visitors day and night who come to see the exhibitions, shows and concerts as well as just plain ogling the bikes.

That’s about 35,000 people so you can see what money is generated over the weekend and not just at petrol stations!

My mate, Nelson – who used to go down in his youth – says there are a number of, er, adult shows involving the appreciation of the female form such as wet T-shirt contests and striptease, all very tasteful of course. Quite unusually, Nelson can’t seem to get time off from the missus to go any more!

Despite these numbers and distractions it all seems quite a peaceful affair. The good old GNR are out with the notebooks for offences of course.

This year’s ticketing for the weekend was believed to be just over 300. That’s roughly, I guess, the equivalent amount snapped by the good old Gatsos in an hour on the M62, all in the constant search for traffic safety of course!

Apparently the oldest participant was 82, a man called Armando Dias. There’s a rumour his chopper handlebars had been fabricated from a zimmer!

Great emphasis is put on accident prevention on the way to and from the event (I guess that should include those lads who caused a sonic boom passing me on the IC-1) but inevitably there are accidents.

This year there was one death from an accident up here in the Alentejo. Indeed, last year on my way back from the supermarket we were caught in a stoppage to retrieve a biker and his machine who’d gone off on one of the many bends in the road and decorated the Campo. The air ambulance was called and he was airlifted to hospital.

The event closed on the Sunday lunchtime with a bikers’ parade through Faro before they all departed. The headline band at the big weekend concert was the rock band Europe and they obviously belted out one of their hits – The Final Countdown – a phrase which was hopefully remembered by those travelling home after the weekend bash later on the Sunday afternoon!